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Sunday, 2 July 2017

UN AGREES TO $570 MILLION CUT IN PEACEKEEPING MISSIONS UNDER U.S. PRESSURE

UN AGREES TO $570 MILLION CUT IN
PEACEKEEPING MISSIONS UNDER U.S. PRESSURE

The United
Nations General Assembly on June 30 agreed to a nearly $600 million cut in the
UN's budget for peacekeeping under pressure from the United States, which
proposed to slash the program.

After days of
negotiations, the assembly's powerful budget committee agreed to a $7.3 billion
budget for 14 peacekeeping missions for the year starting July 1, a $570
million cut from the current budget of $7.87 billion.

U.S. Ambassador
Nikki Haley hailed the decision as an achievement. "Just five months into
our time here, we've already been able to cut over half a billion dollars from
the UN peacekeeping budget, and we're only getting started," she said.

Washington pays
28.5 percent of the peacekeeping budget and 22 percent of the UN's core budget
of $5.4 billion. The UN has about 95,000 peacekeepers serving in its missions
worldwide.

The United States
has been closely reviewing every peacekeeping mission as its mandate comes up
for renewal with an eye toward pruning spending.

'Satisfactory
Solution'

The UN has been
carrying out its own reviews. Those led to the closing of the peacekeeping
mission in Ivory Coast on June 30, while the mission in Liberia is wrapping up
its operations next year and the Haiti mission will come mostly to an end in
October.

The UN is also
slashing the number of peacekeepers in Darfur by 44 percent and the number of
international police there by about 27 percent.

When negotiations
over the peacekeeping budget began, the United Nations was seeking an increase
to nearly $8 billion while the United States wanted to cut it to just below $7
billion.

Italy's UN
ambassador, Sebastiano Cardi, said the $7.3 billion agreement ended up close to
where the European Union said the budget should be.

"It's been a
satisfactory solution," he said, adding that the cuts didn't jeopardize
the operation of UN missions and are going "to make peacekeeping
better."

UN spokesman
Stephane Dujarric said "the overall level is meaningfully smaller than
what we had last year, but we will make every effort to ensure that the
mandates are implemented."

UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres spent three days in Washington this week lobbying
lawmakers to allocate more funding to the UN than President Donald Trump
requested in his budget.

"We cannot
overstate the value of peacekeeping to achieve peace and stability,"
Dujarric said. "It remains the most cost-effective instrument at the
disposal of the international community to prevent conflicts and foster
conditions for lasting peace."